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Originally published in Science Express on 27 September 2007
Science 19 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5849, pp. 435 - 438
DOI: 10.1126/science.1143791
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Reports

Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warming

Lowell Stott,1* Axel Timmermann,2 Robert Thunell3

Establishing what caused Earth's largest climatic changes in the past requires a precise knowledge of both the forcing and the regional responses. We determined the chronology of high- and low-latitude climate change at the last glacial termination by radiocarbon dating benthic and planktonic foraminiferal stable isotope and magnesium/calcium records from a marine core collected in the western tropical Pacific. Deep-sea temperatures warmed by ~2°C between 19 and 17 thousand years before the present (ky B.P.), leading the rise in atmospheric CO2 and tropical–surface-ocean warming by ~1000 years. The cause of this deglacial deep-water warming does not lie within the tropics, nor can its early onset between 19 and 17 ky B.P. be attributed to CO2 forcing. Increasing austral-spring insolation combined with sea-ice albedo feedbacks appear to be the key factors responsible for this warming.

1 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
2 International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
3 Department of Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: stott{at}usc.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Carbon Dioxide Sequestration A Solution to a Global Problem.
E. H. Oelkers and D. R. Cole (2008)
Elements 4, 305-310
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)